


I'm Pulled

by deathwailart



Category: Assassin's Creed
Genre: Character Study, Family, Fire, Gen, Homestead, Loss, Nightmares
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-04
Updated: 2013-04-04
Packaged: 2017-12-07 10:45:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,158
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/747629
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deathwailart/pseuds/deathwailart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are unfriendly eyes that crawl over him as he walks their streets, an invisible line for him to toe, half in one world, half in another but since donning this uniform, never belonging to either.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I'm Pulled

**Author's Note:**

> Most importantly, this is my first time writing Connor and I'm very nervous about it. The King Washington DLC doesn't come up here because it wasn't required for what I wanted to write.
> 
> Title comes from The Beast by Laura Marling: _I’m pulled by the pull on my throat, I'm pulled by the rope_ because I was listening to it as I wrote and that line works very well for the story.

There are unfriendly eyes that crawl over him as he walks their streets, an invisible line for him to toe, half in one world, half in another but since donning this uniform, never belonging to either. He is other, he is unwanted and though he has heard the shrieks if Clipper or Stephane or even Deborah have barged into people, they are more alarmed with him. These people who cannot pronounce his name when they hear it. Even his own father and though he knows what sort of man Haytham Kenway is there is still a sting there when he stumbles with it when Connor speaks two tongues; Connor's English is precise, soft so as not to offend, none of the contractions he hears around him. Some would say it's as if he stands on ceremony – his crew of the Aquila who are a rough and ready bunch though they are loyal and brave, men who follow him into situations they perhaps would rather avoid – but he is aware of what the people think. Heathens and savages and here he is, told by Achilles when just a boy – a boy who knew so little of the world other than fire, Charles Lee with his choking grip and curling lip and lack of regard, the sense of being hemmed in from spying from the treetops – to pretend to be what he's not, to let them think what they will of him. He understands now as a man, he hates it, hates that there is such ignorance, such injustice that he must lie to make himself acceptable enough to walk these streets with them with the minimum of fuss.  
  
But still their eyes are on him.  
  
People who reach out without a second thought to touch. Strangers, not friends. Not the homestead who are family to him now - still uncomfortable in his role, protector and there are nights where he wakes with phantom smoke to choke him, sting his eyes, _ista_ , his high scream and on those nights sleep is impossible so he stares out at this new home and wonders if his shoulders are broad enough for this. It's not the same as where home was before. Kanatahséton where Kanen'tó:kon is (childhood, bittersweet without his mother but running, jumping, climbing and teaching, he has always been teaching, perhaps it is why it is so strange to be taught) is, where the clan mother is, where familiar things are. The place he defends and never sees enough. At times he is torn down the middle with so much of him yearning to return to what he should do, what he would have done if fire had not come and ravaged and if the clan mother had not taken him aside. But the world is so much bigger than him and his wants, his needs, his desires. The world is so much bigger than any of them know with a secret war fuelling this one that rages, that sends brother against brother, colonist against the land they once belonged to with his people and those like them caught with no one to listen, no one to care.  
  
And his war is the one only a select few can know of. A story that will not be told. His tale will be scattered to the winds like so many ashes. The Assassins will remember as they remember Altaïr and Ezio, the Templars will remember because who else is there to remember the secret hidden struggle that has gone on for centuries. But what else will anyone else remember? Ratonhnhaké:ton (will that be how he is remembered by all?) who had to slay a brother, who lost his mother to his people, Connor (a son buried once, _old man I am sorry_ , he thinks) who helped to liberate those who needed him. Patients taken to doctors, blankets burned (flinching, always flinching from the licking of flames, cold sweat nightmares of arms dragging him away from his mother, her hands clutching his as his young skin blistered in the heat), rabid dogs put down. The little things. All the lives he has taken, important men and maybe (certainly) they will brand him monster for that. Taking the lives of men who wished only for progress in this new land they thought of as theirs to carve up and conquer.  
  
In the end what has he accomplished? When he limps – the healing is slow, this lingering pain and it's only right really that twenty-one years of hunting, of seething festering hatred takes time to move on from – to find his people gone. When he sees those who are different paraded and sold as cattle before the masses. It would be easy to give up. After all he has failed. His home is gone, his mentor is dead, he killed his best friend and this world does not seem as though it will get better, there is a sick weight in his gut as he shares a fire with the frontiersman and again in New York, and he has a ship. He has a crew. He could sail off into the sunset to seek a fortune and maybe no one would blame him. The homestead flourishes and there is new life there and marriage, fruitful lands, this community he has put together and loves dearly, the others who call themselves assassins who live in places that are better for them, where they can fight the good fight with fewer restrictions placed upon them.  
  
Where does he belong? That line he has stumbled along, the line that has threatened to tear him in two with obligation and duty and do this Connor, do that Connor, fetching and carrying and errands thrust upon him without a second thought from far too many that he said _nothing_ of for he wished only to help. That line is a wide thing, a gash in need of stitches but his hands are not those of a healer, a line blurred from all the miles he has walked it, trying to maintain a balance when he felt himself leaning too far in one direction or the other. The line is red as old blood, thick and clotted. Behind him it is black as smoke and cinder. When he tries to take a step back it burns. No complete justice, only dissatisfaction and an exhaustion that goes deeper than the flesh and a future he cannot see.  
  
Achilles never told him how the other Assassins continued on when their work was done. Maybe another will come to Connor as he came to the old man and he hopes he will be a better teacher than he was a student and that there will be no line, no tug or pull for anyone who comes for guidance as there was (is, it will never go, it will still linger, invisible fingers at his spine, his wrists, his throat, his heart) for him.


End file.
